By AHSANULLAH WAZIR ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER | Abdullah Mehsud, left, former Guantanamo Bay prisoner who allegedly led kidnapping of Chinese engineers, talks to reporters near Chagmalai on Thursday, Oct 14, 2004 in South Waziristan along Afghanistan border. | Ummm... Lemme get this straight: AP photographers can find him, but the entire Pak army only suspects where he might be? |
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About 1,000 Pakistani soldiers backed by helicopter gunships, mortars and artillery Wednesday pounded a mountainous region near the Afghan border where a former Guantanamo Bay prisoner who masterminded the kidnapping of two Chinese engineers is believed to be hiding.
| Took a real mastermind to come up with that idea, by Gum! |
The assault targeted the village of Spinkai Raghzai in South Waziristan, a tribal region where the Pakistani army has been hunting Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida associates. But the top military commander in the region said Tuesday it was unlikely bin Laden was hiding in the area, as U.S. authorities suspect.
| "Nope. Nope. Not here. Maybe... ummm... someplace else." |
Abdullah Mehsud, a former prisoner at the U.S. military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba who was released in March, had been hiding in the area. The one-legged militant, who is Pakistani, is believed responsible for the kidnapping of two Chinese engineers on Oct. 9. Since returning home, he has taken command of militants in South Waziristan and has forged ties with al-Qaida, Pakistani intelligence officials say.
| But Amnesia International and Human Rights Watch say most of those guys in Guantanamo are innocent, pure as the driven snow, just in the wrong place at the wrong time! How could this be? No doubt Mehsud is just doing charity work in the area, right? |
Also Wednesday, intelligence officials said they had captured a suspected al-Qaida communications expert of Middle Eastern origin whom they identified as Abdul Rahman.
| That tells us a lot. Most of the guys in the Wonderful World of Islam who aren't named Mahmoud are named Abdul Rahman. |
Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed confirmed the arrest of a terror suspect, but would not provide further details on when or where he was captured. The man did not appear to be on either the FBI's most-wanted terror list or a similar Pakistani list.
| Maybe under another name? Look under "Mahmoud." They sometimes lie about their names. |
The assault Wednesday was directed at Spinkai Raghzai, a village about 35 miles northeast of Wana, the main town in South Waziristan. Militants returned fire with mortars and guns but there was no word on casualties. The village is believed to be a Mehsud stronghold, an intelligence official said. But Mehsud's whereabouts have not been known since last Thursday, when commandos raided a house where five of his men were holding the two Chinese engineers. One of the Chinese was freed but the other was killed in the assault. All five kidnappers were also killed. Security chiefs then vowed to hunt down Mehsud, who had been hiding in mountains close to the raided house and disappeared after the attack. "You can't be sure where he is," the intelligence official told The Associated Press.
| "He's everywhere! He's everywhere!" |
The army has also been hunting bin Laden in South Waziristan, a region bordering Afghanistan. But Lt. Gen. Safdar Hussain, the top commander in northwest Pakistan, said late Tuesday his forces have found no sign of the terrorist leader. However, Hussain said there are still hundreds of militants, many suspected of ties to al-Qaida, in the region. Since March, security forces have killed 246 of them, including 100 foreigners, and arrested 579. About 170 army and paramilitary troops have also been killed in the crackdown, he said. "Our war against foreign terrorists will continue ... until we are successful. We will rest after the foreign terrorists are eliminated," he said.
Also Wednesday, police said they had arrested a Pakistani identified as Arfan Ali Shah, suspected of masterminding the Oct. 6 car bomb blast at a gathering of Islamic radicals in the city of Multan that killed 42 people. The motive for that attack was believed to be sectarian rivalries within Pakistan. |